LOVO, the AI Voice & Synthetic Speech Company out of Berkeley, announced a $4.5 million Pre-Series A round led by Kakao Entertainment, with participation from Kakao Investment and LG CNS, previous investor SkyDeck Fund, and industry veterans such as the VP of Finance of DoorDash. The round was oversubscribed with interest from various VCs and angel investors given the company’s rapid growth since its launch last year coupled with its leading-edge technology.
LOVO plans to use these funds to further its artificial intelligence development and product innovation, add fuel to its business, and grow the team. With a mission to democratize audio content production and create brand new auditory experiences beyond spatial and temporal limitations of human voice, LOVO allows enterprises and individual content creators to generate voiceover content for use cases over marketing, e-learning, customer support, movies, games, singing, chatbots, and AR/VR.
Not having access to voices that are always present, easy to manage, and customized for their brand has been a challenge for content creators of all shapes and sizes. LOVO’s catalog of 400+ Voice Skins provide users with voices categorized by language, style, and situation suited for their various needs. Users can even create their own AI voices by simply reading 15 minutes of script, either by sending in their recording or taking advantage of LOVO’s DIY custom voice cloning service.
“LOVO has the most advanced AI voices suited for storytelling, and the fact that they were developing their technology and services aiming at the global market from the very beginning grabbed our attention.” said J. H. Ryu, VP of CEO Vision Office at Kakao Entertainment. “I’m excited for LOVO’s synergies with Kakao Entertainment’s future endeavors in the entertainment vertical, especially with web novels and music. AI technology is opening the doors to a new market for audio content, and we expect a future where an individual’s voice will be utilized effectively as an intellectual property and an asset.”
While improvements in computer vision have taken leaps and bounds, synthetic speech until now was unable to cross the uncanny valley due to the “robotic voices”. But LOVO’s years of research came to fruition last year with the launch of their first product, LOVO Genny, and they hope to use the new funds to further their research and create AI voices that can express over 100 subtle emotions.
“Since our launch a little over a year ago, users have created over 5million voice content on our platform,” told Tom Lee, CEO of LOVO. “We are constantly working to improve our voices, features, and services to lower the barrier and enable ubiquitous and scalable access to quality voices for all, in applications where it was deemed unimaginable before for whatever reason.” As an extension of this vision, LOVO recently launched a marketplace for both professional and nonprofessional talents to have their AI voices included in LOVO Genny for users worldwide.
“Having been involved with early-stage start-ups like Square and DoorDash, there were key common themes – large market opportunity, convincing product-market-fit, and a mission-driven founder and leadership team. Having met with Charlie and learning more about LOVO, they have the potential to make a big impact in solving problems that have not been addressed in the past. I am looking forward to their continued growth and progress,” added Michael Kim, VP of Finance at DoorDash.
LOVO Genny provides an easy-to-use application for individuals and businesses to find the voice they want, produce, and publish their voiceover content. Developers can utilize LOVO API to turn text into speech in real-time, integrated into their applications. Lastly, anyone is welcome to create a digital copy of their voices via DIY Custom Voice service.
Give Genny a try yourself for free now!
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Other stories that might interest you:
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